Smokeydope

@Smokeydope@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Since we are talking hypotheticals, an ideal scenario would be a nearly completely renewables approach where each household is its own self contained energy production center equippef with solar arrays, wind turbines, thermoelectric generators. Various means of production. And have either propane or diesel as a backup. Most importantly a big battery array for storing energy long term during bad weather.

  Most household electrical wiring is redone for DC transmission and all consumer appliances possible are run straight on DC for optimal efficency. Energy efficent heat pumps for cooling and heating. energy efficent cooking appliances like induction heaters. Electric cars that act as backup battery banks would be awesome.

  Humanity simply does not “stop” because we run out of non-renewable electrical energy. We did fine enough before the industrial revolution, the Amish do fine now, backwoods countrymen do fine now, and renewables + energy efficent consumer devices have improved a bunch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lab Assistant Jobs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Your centipede would be drone striked and the jumbo-wumbo gun research would be used to fuel a new division of the military industrial complex before NATO ever got a chance to add it to the no-no list.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Responsible Adults⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You eat this mandelbrot set right now mister or theres no desert for you!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horrors We've Unleashed⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I am a hippy nature person who tries to be merciful and kind to plants or insects. The sole exception is mosquitoes. Those fuckers want to take my blood and dont settle for one serving if they get the chance. Were in a biological armrace and so far we’ve been loosing. Let’s see how they like being fucked with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI Execs Mass Quit as Company Removes Control From Non-Profit Board and Hands It to Sam Altman⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I choose to not get involved in debating with someone more interested in spitting out five paragraph essays than bothering to double check if they’re still talking to the same person.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI Execs Mass Quit as Company Removes Control From Non-Profit Board and Hands It to Sam Altman⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  A tool is a tool. AI is no different than computer you use browse the internet.

  When its used badly as an outlet for escapism or substitute for social connection it can lead to bad consequences for your personal life.

  When it’s used as a tool to help work through a tough task, or as a step in a creative process, or be of on demand assistance to aid the disabled and neurodivergent, it can improve peoples lives for the better.

  A tool has no say in how its used. It can be used to create things or dismantle them. It can serve a purpose in your life, or enslave your life to another’s purpose.

  Its all about how you choose to interact with it in your personal life, and how society, buisnesses and your governing bodies choose to use it in their own processes. And believe me, they will find ways to use it.

  I think comparing llms to computers in 90s is accurate. Right now only nerds, professionals, and industry/business/military see their potential. As the tech gets figured out, utility improves, and llm desktops start getting sold as consumer grade appliances the attitude will change maybe?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI Execs Mass Quit as Company Removes Control From Non-Profit Board and Hands It to Sam Altman⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It delivers on what it promises to do for many people who use LLMs. They can be used for coding assistance, Setting up automated customer support, tutoring, processing documents, structuring lots of complex information, a good generally accurate knowledge on many topics, acting as an editor for your writings, lots more too. Its a rapidly advancing pioneer technology like computers were in the 90s so every 6 months to a year is a new breakthrough in over all intelligence or a new ability. Now the new llm models can process images or audio as well as text.

  The problem for openAI is they have competitors who will absolutely show up to eat their lunch if they sink as a company. Facebook/Meta with their llama models, Mistral AI with all their models, Alibaba with Qwen. Some other good smaller competiiton too like the openhermes team. All of these big tech companies have open sourced some models so you can tinker and finetune them at home while openai remains closed. Most of them offer their cloud models at very competitive pricing especially mistral.

  The people who say AI is a trendy useless fad don’t know what they are talking about or are upset at AI. I am a part of the local llm community and have been playing around with open models for months pushing my computers hardware to its limits. Its very cool seeing just how smart they really are, what a computer that simulates human thought processes and knows a little bit of everything can actually do to help me in daily life. Neural networks are here and they are only going to get better. Were in for a wild ride.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people seemingly against AI chatbots aiding in writing code?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Its not just AI code but AI stuff in general.

  It boils down to lemmy having a disproportionate amount of leftist liberal arts college student types. They see AI as a threat to their creative independent business, or feel slighted that their data may have been used to train a model. Its understandable why lots of people denounce AI out of spite or ignorance.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Secret calculator hack brings ChatGPT to the TI-84, enabling easy cheating⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for sharing, knew him from some numberphile vids cook to see they have a mastadon account. Good to know that LLMs are crawling from “incompentent graduate” to “mediocre graduate”. Which basically means its already smarter than most people for many complex reasoning task.

  I’m not a big fan of the way the guy speaks though, as is common for super intelligent academic types they have to use overly complicated wording to formally describe even the most basic opinions while mixing in hints of inflated ego and intellectual superiority. He should start experimenting with having o-1 as his editor and summarize his toots.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Regarding this picture, where do you think quantum computers lie and why?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Quantum computers have no place in typical consumer technology, its practical applications are super high level STEM research and cryptography. Beyond being cool to conceptualize why would there be hype around quantum computers from the perspective of a average person who can barel figure out how to post on social media or send an email?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Custom ROMs have had just about enough of being Android's second-class citizens⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You can put a SIM card in many thinkpads and there are services https://jmp.chat/ that let you use your computer as a VOIP phone. I haven’t tried JMP but it always seemed cool.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Decentralised YouTube alternative Odysee no longer serving ads⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was a big fan of odysee but once LBRY lost to the SEC I figured it would die or change horribly. Im not sure who owns odysee now, how hosting works on it now that LBRY has been dissolved, or whos mining rigs are running the decentralized lbry blockchain that still presumably powers odysee. I need to know the details in clear detail before I trust it again on a technical level. I am more skeptical of crypto now and think a paid patreon membership peertube instance may be the best way to go. Peertubes biggest issue is scaling hosting cost as it gets bigger and donations can’t keep up as well as lifetime of an instance. If I host my videos on your site and a year later it goes dark or they were deleted because the server maintainer just didn’t want them taking up space, thats kind fustrating.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨obesity⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just wanted to give some input as someone who dealt with lifelong obesity. As a fat person, some people just don’t like to face the music or give themselves an honest look in the mirror. They don’t want to call a spade a spade. Changing around words to describe things in more complex and softer language doesn’t change the situation any, it just helps you psychologically cope with your own insecurities.

  The same with playing the blame game on outside factors like genetics and disability. Blaming everything you can but yourself and your own choices and failures and unaddressed mental insecurities. Thats not a fat person thing though, thats a general human being thing I tend to see in most groups of people one way or another. Its easier to believe you never had a choice, than to own up to the consequences of your failures.

  When you have fat rolls, and stretch marks litter your stomach, and you look more like a slug than a human being, and you need help wiping your own ass or a bigger toilet to support the weight, when you have to go shopping at specialty close stores (before amazon) just to find a size that fits, and you have no self control or desire to change your habits to stop the self destructive spiral, thats obesity. Regardless of arguments on BMI or CICO or genetics or whatever else, you’ve got a serious problem that needs addressing or it will destroy you slowly but surely.

  “At least I’ll die happy!” my type 2 diabetic father would always gleefully tell me as he shoved another tasty cake in his mouth. I don’t think they ever did make him happy though. He had mental health issues he never worked through in life. Instead, he relied on the temporary relief of junk food for pleasure, eventually having his addiction dominate and guide his existence.

  As for me? I’ve gone through cycles of gaining and loosing 100 pounds. Right now im on a downward trend, lost 40 pounds this year. Hope to loose another 40 by this time next year. I gain the pounds during cycles of extreme depression, and loose them during cycles of great determination and self-agency. Our physical well-being is tied to our emotional and spiritual well-being. Self destructive cycles are much easier to enter when you feel nihilistic and out of control of your own life.

  How do I loose weight? I don’t eat. Simple as. I eat one meal a day, if that. Maybe snack on some dried preserved nuts and fruits once or twice.I drink water and lemon juice. Maybe this is a little unhealthy but I try to imploy some anorexic type thoughts like “Im strong enough, I can withstand the hunger for another hour or two. Lets sip on some water and endure it.” Often the hunger is boredom disguised. Its hard, im hungry every single day most of the day. But I see the results of my conviction when I step on the scale expecting it to raise 5 lbs and seeing it drop 10 lbs. I look at myself in the mirror, examining my stretch marks and folds to remind myself of what im doing it for, and the price ive already had to pay for my insecurities and failures to control myself.

  The physical act of loosing weight is hard and requires self-control over a very long time often multiple years. The mental act of introspection and reflecting on what lead to your obesity often requires analysing the roots of your negative aspects while confronting those past traumas. That requires a mental strength and intelligence many people lack. At the end of the day, its easier and feels nicer to twist words and point fingers than fix your own problems.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Smokey's Simple Guide To Search Engine Alternatives⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes it is absolutely possible to get similar results with searxng to start page, in fact some instances allow you to aggregate startpage results directly.

  I found priv.au as an example of an instance that can directly aggregate startpage.

  So the trick to the instance weirdness going on is that each instance has its own set of default engines set to aggregate from. For example one searxng instance may want to only aggregate google and bing, while another may want to aggregate only independent search engines that don’t use google or bing such as YaCy and Qwant.

  Here’s what you can do about that: The secret to overcoming this and dialing in the search results you want is to realize you can actually configure each searxng instance to aggregate the engines you want while disabling the default ones you don’t. All searxng/searxng instances have a preferences menu usually a gear icon in the top right corner. Or you can go to searxng-example.com/preferences . Once in preferences go to the ‘engines’ section from there you can tick the engines you want to use.

  Some instances save your settings as cookies, some instances save your settings as a sub URL for that instance. The priv.au instance I mentioned saves your settings as cookies.

  Hope this helps.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨William Shatner's TekWar is the technological future of crap⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Here’s a link for civvie11’s review or tekwar for anyone who hasn’t seen this pinnacle of entertainment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can you un-smart a smart tv?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just get the biggest computer monitor you can afford

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CFCs⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I wonder how many people will see this and not know its a quote from Futurama

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What Do People Think of Apple's Vision Pro Headsets?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think vr is cool but it would definitely be a novelty thing that would be played with for a while then put away and rarely touched again.

  I wonder how many occulus rifts are collecting dust right now

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To buy no longer means anything :(⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just a friendly reminder that mineclone2 exist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Disney+ has started cracking down on password sharing in the US⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Also good piracy requires understanding torrenting and navagating the 7 seas with a vpn. My parents LOVE to tell all their friends and family how I can magically get any tv show or movie for 5$ a month without all that subscription crap which gets their hopes up and I have to gently let them down that it requires a bit more computer knowhow than the average person has.

  If you think you can properly educate people on safely torrenting be my guest but for most people who have neither the time or desire to learn computer nerd stuff instead of just coughing up dollars go for it!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Plex for books?⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Koreader has a plugin to sync with calibre local server and its a REALLY good ereader software

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨More and more USB sticks and microSD cards are being made with dubious components — data recovery firm uncovers no-name, low-quality NAND inside many devices⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I really like what explainingcomputers did for their pi4 build, where they basically convert a m.2 SSD into a big usb thumb drive with a simple metal enclosure. Check it out, the timestamp you want is 6:25

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google will no longer back up the Internet: Cached webpages are dead. Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Cached webpages are dead Internet archive: 👀

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Music Piracy Is Back, Baby⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Please for the love of god avoid buying a real mp3 player with a metal shell, become a linux nerd, install yt-dlp, and run this command in the terminal yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 -o “%(playlist_index)02d - %(title)s.%(ext)s” MUSIC-PLAYLIST-URL-LINK It also totally doesn’t work on other music websites like bandcamp.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Smokey's Simple Guide To Search Engine Alternatives⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you! Apologies for the mistake, it has now been corrected to .ltd.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube is slowing down for users with ad blockers in new wave⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Follow the damn train, CJ!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Proton Mail says that the new Outlook app for Windows is Microsoft's new data collection service⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  People whine about the same thing over and over and over, somehow acting shocked and outraged when microsoft does each month what its been doing for decades. Make their product somehow even more shitty and erode their customers experience so they can sell you the same product with a new paintjob. Big tech sucks, they want to squeeze you dry for every nickel you ever owned, and your private information too. Its sold to anyone who wants including your government and they don’t even bother storing it securely. You know this. I know this. Even the average non tech person knows this. We’ve all known it for a very long time now.

  Don’t like it? Too bad, not changing any time soon. Kind of just have to accept microsoft cuckery if its for your work. For personal use though theres always the option to switch to linux, start using open source software, and get a new email through a public acess unix server like tilde.team

  But no, theres always some excuse lazy and stubborn people unwilling to compromise have, to not do any of that either. Cause that one videogame you really like doesn’t work on linux cause shitty anticheat, or you think you need that one adobe product that does have open source alternatives but aren’t as good as a corporate product, or your online accounts are already tied to gmail/outlook and it would be too much work to switch it all over to a new email. Options exist, people just don’t want to take them up because they can’t stand being inconvinenced or relearning their computer software.

  So I have no more sympathy for people who willingly use windows or outlook or youtube or any corporate product and then wonder why that product continues to get worse while they charge you more money for it + a subscription now.

  Sorry for the 5 paragraph essay, I guess im just tired of seeing the /technology outrage circlejerk about this weeks episode of ‘corporate products are shit and getting shittier by the day’

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's wrong babe, you barely touched your hot dog bologna cake⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Katie I think we need some black bars over that cake

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Proton Mail says that the new Outlook app for Windows is Microsoft's new data collection service⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wait what I just thought this was another round of whining and clutching pearls over microsoft stuff being spyware but thats actually messed up, theres no way thats not a HIPPA violation

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Go on, just one more crevice.⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Glad to see that the isekai industry is booming and reviving tourism to these places